Adult victims of child sexual abuse on Monday afternoon came one step closer to securing a temporary window of time that would allow them to bring predators to justice.

The House voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment that would attach to a statute of limitations reform bill a retroactive component permitting those victims timed-out of the legal system a chance to file civil suits.

The House could as early as Tuesday vote on Senate Bill 261 - the main bill. The Senate passed the bill last February; it reforms the statute of limitations, notably by eliminating the criminal statutes on child sex abuse. Under the bill, child sex abuse - like murder - would never have statutes expire.

Speaking in support for the amendment, Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, a Republican and a Catholic from Bucks County, excoriated his church and said it was time for victims to have their day in court.

"It's time for my church to accept responsibility for its action," he said. "It's time for healing for the church to start taking place and the healing will not start until they accept responsibility. It might be only way for them to accept this bill...this window."

Several lawmakers cited the similar findings out of the investigations in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. The push to reform the state laws to extend a retroactive window to victims has largely been ongoing since those investigations.

Speaking in opposition to Rozzi's amendment, Rep. Michael Corr, a Republican from Montgomery County, argued that lawmakers had a duty to uphold the state Constitution, and that the amendment violated the remedies clause, which extends certain defenses to citizens.

"This amendment would strip citizens of that right," he said. "Government does not have the power to strip that right....What is the limit and power of government?"

The retroactive measure has remained the linchpin to the demands laid out by victims and advocates, who say that as long as they are not able to go after their predators those predators will continue to prey on other children.

Just hours leading to the vote, Rep. Mark Rozzi, the author of the retroactive amendment, assembled in the Capitol Rotunda with dozens of lawmakers - current and former - to urge House members and their Senate counterparts to support the look-back window.

establish a two-year window in which civil lawsuits alleging childhood sexual abuse may be filed in court despite any otherwise applicable statute of limitations defense;

increases the standard of conduct for the waivers of sovereign and governmental immunity from regular negligence to gross negligence;

retain the current caps on damages for lawsuits brought pursuant to a waiver of sovereign or governmental immunity;

remove the statement of legislative intent.

"This isn't a hard vote. It isn't," Rozzi said just moments before the amendment vote. "Ask yourself one question: do you stand with victims or do you stand with pedophiles or the institutions who protect them?"

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